The Biggest Loser: Season 8 Visit to DC

For the second day in a row, I’m going to talk about Chelsea. Besides the fact that she’s a fabulous writer, a good friend and an amazing woman, she has a fantastic weekly Biggest Loser recap/commentary feature. This week’s recap can be read here. If you don’t watch The Biggest Loser and you have any interest in reading the rest of this post, it would be a good idea to go read her recap. Heck, even if you do watch the show, you should read her commentary!

Ok, did you read it? Good. Now we can continue.

This was perhaps my favorite Biggest Loser episode to date. (Note: I have only seen the past two seasons.) John and I had a great time watching it together, and it seemed like every few seconds, one of us had something great to add.

Examples:

When they announced the contestants were going to DC and Tracey celebrated, John said “Tracey is Washington’s biggest fan.” (an allusion to Chelsea’s post from last week’s recap)

And at the end, when Tracey said “I was on the Biggest Loser. How many people can say that?” I added (very matter of factly) “206.” And yes, I know “factly” is not a word.

As for the school thing and the contestants lobbying the Congressmen, it was my understanding that it was for all youth, not just elementary school kids. Think about it. If you got to high school and only needed a semester or two of a PE-type course and you were not athletic to begin with, what would teach you to be active? Where would you learn about a healthy lifestyle? Even schools that have more PE credit requirements typically don’t do a good job of trying to make the work outs fun and/or engaging. I think this is a significant downfall in our education system.

On the second challenge (the pennies), I am sure they told the contestants they could not use their shirt to carry the pennies up the steps, but if that was the only rule they gave them, I would have taken my shoes off and scooped pennies into them! I also thought it was awesome how excited Ali got toward the end of the competiton. I even rewound the DVR to watch it again. It was so cute and raw. It’s like we got a snapshot of the “real” non-BL host Ali. She’s cute!

Besides all of that, I enjoyed the part filmed at the White House. I think it’s awesome that the First Family has a garden that they eat from. I think that is an excellent example for Americans. I wish Newsweek, Time, etc. would do a big feature on it. As a side note, coming up with an article pitch like that makes me feel like Ugly Betty, another one of my favorite shoes. I also loved Bob’s comment about how he wanted to squeeze the Obamas because he loved them so much for their garden. (It was something to that effect – I didn’t take notes, but I should have this week!)

At the weigh in, I wasn’t upset to see Tracey or Liz fall below the yellow line. I was ready for either of them to go home, and though I’m not a big fan of Tracey, I do wish her well. I was blown away by how amazing she looked in the transformation moment segment. (Moment segment…hmm, I’m not sure if I can use those words together like that, maybe I should say “Transformation Moment” segment. There, that’s better.)

Bottom line: if you don’t watch The Biggest Loser, you should!